I’ve been taking a vacation from vacation. After returning from the Minnesota-Wisconsin-Illinois extravaganza, which was itself a recovery from Moscow, I spend the past few weeks recovering from vacation. At first, I was absolutely unmotivated to do anything. Writing the two talks, one for ICHEP and a much longer one […]
Life
485 posts
Well, the ants are back. In the house, that is. Jodi discovered them sneaking in through a crack in the foundation, using a gap in the bathroom baseboard as an entrance. I sealed the crack as best I could, but it was clear that we needed to draw them elsewhere. […]
Well, I am back in California. After a very pleasant two week trek through the upper Midwest (driving a total of 2300 miles from Minneapolis, to Soudan, to Park Falls, Oshkosh, Milwaukee, Madison, Fermilab, Milwaukee, Park Falls, and then Minneapolis), I am picking up my life here at SLAC. But, […]
Earlier in this vacation, I said that I was excited about getting rain, thunderstorms, and maybe even a tornado. I argued as follows: I didn’t travel 2000 miles for weather I can get for free in California. Last night, I got my wish. Jodi fell asleep around 10, and I […]
I haven’t been back to Naperville since I last attended a Braidwood collaboration meeting, a few months before the project was canceled by the Department of Energy without peer review. Yeah, I’m still harping on that, but it’s a point worth making (over and over). I’m here now to present […]
Jodi and I have been in Wisconsin for a day, marking the second half of our trip to the Midwest. We’re leaving Park Falls tomorrow for Osh Kosh, then on to Madison on Tuesday and Wednesday. I sat outside today, working on the PC I built for my in-laws using […]
We’re in the final stages of packing and cleaning before we get into the car, head south (quick lunch in Virginia, then coffee in Duluth), and go to Jodi’s parents’ house. Goodbye, Soudan!
One of the many reasons I am a physicist is the influence of my father. I had previously commented on the role my mother’s father, “pop-pop”, played on my choice to pursue science as part of my life. However, the role my father played in engaging me in challenging questions, […]
I think that much of the public forgets that scientists, including physicists, are people, too. Partly, this is because of the myth of the scientist – the recluse, the weirdo, the hubris. Partly, this is because often the most outspoken scientists are, indeed, the reclusive, weirdo, snobs. It’s the greater […]
We closed the trip into the mine yesterday the way that they close it every day: rush to get to the elevator before final call. The 8-minute announcement sounded as the last CDMS people hurried out of electronics rooms and clean rooms, gathered their belonging, and collected at the exit. […]
My “day off” in the mine has been anything but. Well, to be fair, I volunteered. I had planned to spend the day catching up on news, listening to some statistics lectures from SLAC [SLUOStats], and generally take photos of all the cool stuff down here in the Soudan Mine […]
I’m scheduled to give the “wine and cheese” seminar at “Fermilab”:http://www.fnal.gov on August 25, so part of my vacation has to be spent writing slides for the talk. I’m planning to give the audience a promenade through recent results using searches for leptonic decays of heavy mesons. BaBar is what […]